Gaza Airstrikes 2025: Israeli airstrikes kill 17 in northern and central Gaza
Israeli airstrikes in north and central Gaza killed at least 17 Palestinians on Wednesday, Palestinian officials and local media said.
One of the airstrikes hit a house in the Jabaliya area in northern Gaza, while another hit the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the attack, but Israel issued a warning earlier Wednesday to evacuate people from the Bureij area, saying militants there were firing rockets.
The Israeli military said it had killed Hamas militant Abdal-Hadi Sabah. Sabah helped lead the militant group’s infiltration into the southern Israeli town of Kibbutz Nir Oz in the October 7, 2023 attack.
Israel warned on Wednesday that it would intensify its attacks on Gaza if Hamas continued its rocket fire.
“I want to send a clear message to the terrorist leaders in Gaza: If Hamas does not release Israeli hostages from Gaza as soon as possible… and continues to fire on Israeli communities, it will be met with a force that Gaza has not seen in a long time,” Defense Minister Katz said.
Israel has repeatedly called for people to evacuate parts of Gaza, with the military saying the evacuation is necessary to conduct its war against Hamas militants safely.
The United Nations and humanitarian organizations have criticized Israel’s strategy, saying evacuation orders often give people little time to leave and that they have no safe place to go in Gaza to escape airstrikes and Israeli ground operations.
The Palestinian Civil Defense said that over the past two days, more than 1,500 tents housing homeless people across Gaza have been soaked in heavy rain and people have suffered from cold weather.
The Gaza war was triggered on October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants launched an attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 people and kidnapped about 250 hostages. There are still about 100 hostages being held in Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed at least 45,500 Palestinians and injured more than 108,000, according to the enclave’s health ministry. The ministry did not distinguish between militants and civilians in its toll.
The war has razed much of Gaza and displaced 90% of its 2.3 million people.
The United States, Britain, the European Union, and others have designated Hamas a terrorist organization.
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